LED displays are known that are formed of a number of LED modules wherein each LED module is used for one pixel of the display. Each of the LED modules has a number of different color LEDs, the intensities of which are controlled to generate pixels of a large number of different colors. Examples of these known types of LED displays are shown in Phares U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,482 and Yoksza et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,410,328.
In both Phares U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,482 and Yoksza et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,410,328, the LED modules are connected in series in a string or daisy chain configuration wherein a data stream is input to one LED module that extracts a subset of data for its module from the data stream and passes the remaining portion of the data stream or the entire data stream to the next LED module in the series. Lys et al. U.S. Pat. No. 7,253,566 and Mueller et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,016,038 respectively disclose systems for lighting or illumination that include LED lighting units or nodes connected in a bidirectional daisy chain configuration or a binary tree configuration with two nodes connected to the output of a single node. In these known systems a single processor supplies a data stream to a LED module or node which in turn sends the data stream to the next module or node in the chain. If communications between the processor and the LED module fail, the system becomes inoperable.